OROGRANDE, N.M. >> For the past three weeks, 3,800 soldiers in the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division have been thoroughly tested.

They've had to face broiling 100- degree temperatures out in the desert, torrential rains and flooding, winds, hail, lightning and even tarantulas.

The 3rd Brigade recently finished its Iron Focus training exercise. The unit took advantage of the expansive Fort Bliss training lands and spread out over 200 square miles from McGregor Range up to just south of Alamogordo.

Besides the weather, the unit -- colorfully nicknamed the Bulldog Brigade -- had to deal with multiple training scenarios that were designed to be as realistic as possible and recreate the conditions they will see when they deploy to Afghanistan in early 2014.

"All the adversity makes us stronger," said Col. Christopher C. LaNeve, commander of the 3rd Brigade. "One of the great things about a field problem like this, if it was 70 degrees and sunny, it wouldn't pull the team together as much as adversity does. Every time we get wet, have to dig a trench to get water out of our tactical operation centers or get a vehicle stuck, every time we have something like that happen, we get stronger as a team. It takes a team to get through it."

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This is just the first step in an intensive training schedule before the Bulldogs go to Afghanistan. In about two months, they'll head to Fort Irwin, Calif., and its National Training Center for four weeks of exercises there.

"What I'm hoping as brigade commander that this experience here makes the National Training Center easy," said LaNeve, a gung-ho Pittsburgh native. "That's the ultimate goal of the training we're doing here." Iron Focus is also designed to bring the brigade closer together as a team, allow the soldiers to make mistakes, learn from those missteps and come up with innovative ways of approaching their mission, LaNeve added.

After each field training exercise, participating soldiers gather around and discuss what they did well and what they can improve on in what is called an After Action Review.

"In my brigade, I'm hoping everyone is sharing lessons learned," LaNeve said. "The goal is every day we are in the field, we get better. Every day, we are learning something and we're getting better and better toward our ultimate goal, which is being prepared for our mission that the country has asked us to do. The only way to do that is to be open and honest with ourselves and accept we will make mistakes and we will learn from that. A good unit is one that absolutely learns from its mistakes."

When the Bulldogs deploy to Afghanistan, they'll meet drastically different conditions on the ground than when they were there a year ago. This time, the Afghan National Army will be in the lead, with U.S. military forces taking on more of an advise-and-assist role.

During Iron Focus, training scenarios were designed to be as realistic as possible. Soldiers from Fort Bliss' 4th Brigade, with some help from the 2nd Brigade, played the Taliban, Afghan National Army and Afghan police. The Afghan troops and police actually played the lead in exercises to recreate as much as possible the conditions the 3rd Brigade will see when they deploy next year. Civilians, many of whom had a Middle Eastern background and spoke the native languages of the region, were hired to play villagers.

"We have a saying in the Army: the more you sweat here, the less you bleed there," said Sgt. Victor Everhart, a senior print journalist with the 3rd Brigade's Public Affairs Office.

During the three-week exercise, soldiers stayed out in the field the entire time.

"If you train for a week and come back (home) for the weekend, there's a lot of logistics in moving all these people and going back to the rear, turning all your weapons systems in, turning in your vehicles," said Sgt. Patrick Doran, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the 3rd Brigade's Public Affairs Office. "It would take away from the training. Getting these people out here and away from families and living out here in the dirt and mud, it gets them used to it when we go over there and have conditions like this."

Operations were run 24/7, just like they would be while deployed. These included night patrols, clearing routes of homemade bombs and making runs to stock up on supplies.

Iron Focus certified that battalions are combat-ready and lethal, while the trip to Fort Irwin will certify the same for the entire brigade.

On July 25, the 130 members of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment took part in the featured exercise of the day at Range 88 in the Oro Grande Range Complex. Their mission was to check out a tip they had received that an Afghan village contained a homemade explosive factory.

Soldiers who role-played as the Afghan National Army took the lead.

The idea was to approach the villagers and discretely ask if they knew anything about a bomb factory in their midst.

But as they approached the village, a mock mortar shell was fired by the soldiers playing the Taliban. That caused the plans for negotiations to go out the window.

Afghan and American soldiers worked crisply together in the exercise to find the bomb plant and secure the village. Four Taliban, played by fellow Fort Bliss soldiers, were "killed" in the exercise, one Afghan National Army soldier was "wounded" and there were zero American casualties.

The soldiers used MILES gear - which is kind of like laser tag but with blanks - to see who got killed or wounded.

A key element of the exercise was that the Afghans were in the lead, which is exactly the situation in that country now, said Capt. Scott Emmons, operations planner for the 3rd Brigade.

"This is as close as we're going to get to the real thing," Emmons said. "Fort Bliss has done a great job with its training villages. But the terrain is almost exactly the same as Afghanistan too. It makes Fort Bliss the perfect place for a predeployment train-up."

Emmons said the rifle company did an excellent job and the exercise was "done by the book."

"The bad guys were killed, the cache of weapons was recovered and no civilians were killed," he said.

After the mock battle, soldiers stopped to talk to villagers and explained what they were doing and why. That was a big step in making the scenario a success, because U.S. forces want to leave these type of situations on friendly terms, Emmons said.

"The only reason we are here is to help them stabilize the country," Emmons said. "We try to instill that's what we are doing. It's a tough job. There's a lot of adrenaline and emotion. If we're not here to help the civilian population, what are we here for? Every soldier has taken that to heart."

Lt. Col. Ed Brady, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, said the key lesson of the exercise was "things have changed on the ground since" the last time they were in Afghanistan.

Adding another touch of realism, after the exercise appeared to be over, the Taliban launched a counter-attack to avenge the loss of their fallen comrades.

The 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery Regiment responded by firing off 155mm howitzer rounds from about 7 1/2 miles away. Two Apache attack helicopters also appeared to provide air support and cover for a Blackhawk helicopter that needed to land to evacuate the "wounded" Afghan soldier.

The Apache helicopters showed their firepower by shooting their 70mm rockets and their 30mm chain rifles.

"This is really good training," said Kuehl, a soldier who took part in the exercise. "If you don't learn something every day, you are a fool."

Elsewhere in the Oro Grande Range Complex, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment had set up a combat outpost in a replica Afghan village called Zambraniyah.

"We own (occupy) this village," said Capt. Jonathon Woloshuk, the company commander. "We work with the villagers to improve their village and at the same time, eliminate the Taliban or enemy threats in the area."

During Iron Focus, they dealt with a riot over a Quran burning that was blamed on Americans and then had to repair relationships within the village. The company has also helped the village with water problems and the Afghan National Police who have had issues with their pay, Woloshuk said.

"The more you practice something, the better trained you are," he said. "It's a muscle memory thing."

Diplomacy is as big a part of dealing with Afghanistan as firepower, he said.

"If we kick in a lot of doors, detain them, rough them up, they'll turn against us, just like in real life," Woloshuk said. "The more practice we get, the better off we'll be in the end. The goal is to make our mistakes here, learn from them and learn as a unit."

Besides members of the 2nd and 4th Brigades who served as enemy and allied soldiers, the Bulldogs also got support during Iron Focus from the 212th Fires Brigade which provided observers/controllers during the exercise, various National Guard units and the 1st Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade.